"Come and see me, and bring all your friends."

Hola familia mia!

I’m glad the package arrived safe and sound and that you’ve enjoyed the pictures I sent. I’m also glad that the Castle DVDs work. The guy at the shop warned us that all sales were final and so we couldn’t return them if they were messed up. I only paid about 20 bucks for all those DVDs (plus Sons of Provo) though, so I wasn’t too concerned. They looked alright to me, just a couple of little scratches.

This week was a lot more fun than last week. No flu. I do have a nasty cold now—I think it’s like you said mom, after you get something like the flu, you’re more susceptible to other illnesses. My companion and I have been running on cold syrup these past couple of days. I got a call Sunday morning from Hermano Solano in the Obispado asking me to give a short talk in sacrament meeting. I agreed to it, and gave the talk with minimal preparation aside from picking some sections in Predicad Mi Evangelio to read and expound on. Everyone says it was really good, and Hermano Solano thanked me for telling the ward ‘exactly what they needed to hear’ which worried me a little. I hope I wasn’t too mean. I don’t really remember much except that the usual stage-fright was totally absent as I stood up and started to talk about missionary work, in what I thought sounded like slightly slurred and cold-syrupy Spanish. They I lay down in the mother’s room for a bit.

But that was just Sunday, in the days previous to Sunday it wasn’t so bad. A sore throat and some trouble sleeping is all. We managed to find a couple of new investigators and new contacts. Out of all my areas, this has been my hardest and the one of which I’ve had the least success, and… I’ve spent a third of my mission here. I love this ward so much. I really feel like we are finally on the brink of a turn-around and like we’ve going to be finding some amazing prepared people soon here. I don’t know if I’ll stay or go, but we find out this weekend and I can tell you in my letter next week, whatever my fate may be. I can speculate that if I stay in this area, then I’ll probably spend the rest of my mission here, otherwise, I’ll have one more area and probably just one more companion… We’ll see. The anticipation of transfer calls, always drives me mad. There’s something so surreal and making appointments and plans that I might not be there for.

I’m not offended that you haven’t had any dreams about me, mom. It’s okay. All your dreams sounds horrible—even worse than regular nightmares because they translate perfectly into the real world and are situations that you could actually find yourself in. I’m sorry! I’ve been having more and more dreams of that nature too recently, but always with bizarre, unbelievable elements mixed in to keep things from getting too settled into reality.

I keep hoping that I’ll have a cool ‘investigator-dream’ experience, but so far, no luck. Hermana Christensen and I were discussing it and we decided that a ton of people should probably have a dream of us sitting on an old wooden porch, playing the guitar beside a corn field and then we say something like, “Come on down to Houston and bring all your friends!”

And then we knock on their door and they’re golden. How sweet, right?

That’s all I ask for. Honestly, I’d like just one miraculous-dream baptism before I go home.

I have dreams about being at home too. More recently than before. It’s always a little weird though, because I’m never supposed to be there.

I LOVE the Old Spaghetti Facotry. Man, I’m hungry. I just realized I forgot to eat today. How silly. I’ll have to take care of that after my letter. Crown Burgers sounds like my kind of joint.

You may have noticed that I don’t talk about my investigators much. I think I already explained about that before, but just in case I didn’t, I wanted to assure you that I am teaching people… well, okay, for a while we weren’t just because we could find anybody at all for the last two transfers almost, but generally speaking I usually have a handful of people we’re teaching. There is a lot of heartache associated with things not working out the way we’d all hoped though, and so I’ve elected to basically only tell you guys about the people who are getting baptized/progressing nicely into the church, which sadly isn’t too many of them right now. We often see a glimmer of hope, but it takes time and patience for many of these people to make the kinds of necessary changes that they need to. For example, our two main investigators right now are only not members of the church ya, because of legal problems that are keeping them from marrying their ‘husbands’ or to clarify, the father of all their kids. It’s hugely frustrating to watch them struggle like this, but don’t think I’m discouraged at all. Every incorrect choice brings disappointment, but God never gives up on us and I’m not about to give up on anyone either. I know that the people I’m teaching right now will be excellent members of the church one day. I hope I’m around to see it, but if not… no importa ahora, I still have to do everything I can to help them right now while I’ve got the authority and power to do so.

Last order of business: if you’re ever around people who say something along the lines of, “How’s Ailsa doing… oh, I need to write her!” encourage them to do so. I’ve had a recent slump with mail, and by recent I mean that I don’t think I’ve gotten more than like 3 letters in the past 2 months that were not from other missionaries. And at least one of them was new nametags from the mission office. Which is kind of like being from missionaries? Whatever. It doesn’t count. I have taken sad-face pictures with the camera looking out of my perpetually empty mailbox, and I am fully prepared to send them to everyone I know, begging for mail. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.

But seriously, how is everyone?! What’s going on in the world out there?

Also, I’m going to ask president if it’s okay for non-immediate-family personnel to email me. I had understood ‘no’ for my whole mission, but never thought to ask about it until recently, since it finally dawned on me that the missionaries around me are communicating though e-mail with pretty much everyone they know. I’ll check and find out if it’s allowed and then maybe it’ll be easier for certain people to tell me how their merry lives are going. Letter-box mail is still very exciting and fun however. I don’t want that to cease entirely.

We recently watched the David and Goliath ‘Liken’ musical. I forgot how terribly adorable it is. Also. Daniel Beck is kind of a stud. Even with the shaved head and silly antics. Since we were watching it with a member, I felt restrained from making a comment mientras such as, “Hermana, I think I’m coveting Saul.” But later she said something about David sort of being “The Mormon Zach Efron.” And we giggled and then remembered that it has been about a decade since we were 12 year old girls and should probably grow up.

Seriously though, how do we all feel about a David Epic? How heartbreaking and Oscar-worthy would that be? Of course, to tell the story in real detail, one will require a bit more than the usually 2 hours. How about a miniseries? Are miniseries dead? I think it’s a decent length for some stories. That Jane Eyre they did was amazing, and let’s just gush about Pride and Prejudice for a minute… anyway. Enough of that.

I miss you all so much, and I LOVE you! I’m really excited to talk on mother’s day. I’ll hopefully have details about that next week, but for now I can say that you should plan on an EARLY pre-phone-call to let you know what time I’ll be calling that night since I probably won’t know until the day before. It’s likely it’ll be the same as before 7 or 8 o’clock.

When I say early, I mean before 7 o’clock Sunday morning.

Sorry.

MWAH! CYBERHUG!

Hermana Lillywhite

Sister Salsa and the Polydactyl Kitty

Ur pwobaby rite.

Hi fambly!

Well.

I don’t have much news this week. I spent about 3 days in bed with the flu. Monday night after P-day last week, I started to feel a little funny, but I just lay down and figured it would go away by morning but instead I was kept awake all night by stomach pain until I finally crawled into the bathroom and threw up for a while. It was pretty miserable. We also had Zone meeting and weekly planning to get done and ultimately didn’t get to do a great deal of work this week… as far as numbers go, this was the worst week of my entire mission, although my district leader, in an appreciated attempt to be positive, pointed out that our ‘member present at investigator’s lesson’ stat. was a perfect 100% which he said he’d never seen anyone achieve before.

So, we didn’t get a lot of work done, as a result of me being totally out of commission and passed out under the influence of Nyquil. The Elders gave me a blessing and after that I got well pretty fast and went back out into the field. My poor companion had to entertain herself for a while, which she claims not to have minded at all. She read a great deal of Jesus The Christ and wrote dozens of pages in her journal.

I heard from one of the other Sisters, that Sister Hansen once attributed missionary sickness to us occasionally needing a little time to pause and examine ourselves on a mental/emotional level. After months of neglect, a little time of reflection can become necessary. Mostly, I just had some superbly bizarre dreams. My most recent ones include Johnny Depp and I as Alice and the Hatter respectively, but in a setting reminiscent of Tom Petty’s music video for “Don’t Come Around Here No More” accept I don’t turn into cake at the end and get eaten, instead I just chucked a chair at Johnny and started to choke him, but then I woke up. I feel bad, I don’t know why I’ve ever do that to poor Mr. Depp. I love him. I also had a pet Monkey for a while, was Home for Conference with you lovely folks! And had to confront my district leader, Elder Parker after finding out that he’d ended his mission early to convert to Judaism. I also started to teach Stephen Fry a first lesson, but only got as far as defining what a prophet was because he had so many comments.

So. That was my week.

I’m so sorry that Jensen didn’t get into the animation program. Her artwork looks amazing, thank you so much for sending me that link. Whatever Jensen ends up doing with her life, I’m sure it’ll be fascinating and that she’ll be very successful. Those silly pets of ours are so much fun… Everything sounds really nice back home. I hope you have great time with Bonco, I’m glad you’re not stressed, as you’re always an awesome hostess.

I miss you all a lot. I’m really looking forward to talking to you in a few weeks on Mother’s day! I am determined to send that blasted package today. I keep putting it off, but I’ve got it all together, and I just need to do it. I love you all very, very much. This letter is short because I spent most of my computer time reading the old Christmas Letters posted on dad’s blog. Good memoriesJ

Hermana Lillywhite

Terribly cheerful, in spite of everything.

Oh! I'm so sorry, I forgot to mention last week how the Easter Candy miraculously arrived perfectly on time, so we we muching on that while watching conference as well. We still have a lot left, but it's going pretty fast. Thank you so much for that! It was such a wonderful Easter Surprise to have those goodies in time. I don’t have much news this week… it was kind of a rough week, filled with lots of finding and searching and praying and occasionally passing out. Man, I don’t think I’ve ever been so exhausted my whole life. We’re working hard because right now our teaching pool is um… nonexistent to be honest. It’s a great opportunity for us to do some hard-core finding.

We’re cheerful always though. I really think that Sister Christensen and I were chosen to work in this area and at this time, because we’re both able to continue working—with no success, but without getting horribly depressed. I mean, we definitely have our moments of tristeza. The other day when our investigator wouldn’t open the door I started scratching at it like a hurt puppy and yelping a little. We’ve also taken to just saying the words “Harry. Carry.” When something particularly devastating happens. I don’t think I’m spelling it right, but you get the idea. We try to have a good attitude is the bottom line. We keep each other laughing and optimistic. Honestly, all these people we teaching are going to be awesome Mormons one day, it’s just that the time isn’t always right. But we’ll keeping working with them until it is.

Our Elders keep us laughing too. They are pretty hilarious. Too many stories to tell them all. Our District Leader right now is Elder parker and he and his companion were in the MTC together, so they’ve got tonz of stories and jokes together that date back from those days. Elder Manship and Elder Geldmaucher in our ward with us are just plain funny. They’ve taken to inventing things. The latest invention that they showed us was a tube of toothpaste that they’d hollowed out and fit with a slightly pointy appendage from the inside of a floss container so that they could inject yogurt into cupcakes. They said it worked wonderfully, although the yogurt had the slight taste of toothpast which after eating few, made them both feel rather ill.

Elder Parker is going to create his own ‘Spanish Missionary’ themed valentines next year. Including such classic lines as, “You and I are like Pan Dulce and Abuelita Chocolate. Together, we’re delicious, but without each other, we’re gross.”

Home sounds charming and classic. Fresh veggies! Yum! I’ve decided I want to learn to cook. I’ve decided I want to learn a lot of things actually. Can I major in “Renaissance Woman” please? Poor Bella baby. One of our member’s cats went into heat a few weeks ago, and we went over to visit them and they were all just sitting around watching her yowl and trying to figure out what to do with her. She’s fine now. Cute kitty, she’s got her appointment to get spayed too.

Wow I had no idea Kate was living in Salt Lake! I have not heard from her since I left. Silly woman. That’s cool that she’s got a job down there, but sad about her family. It’s too bad her siblings can’t follow her example and have some kind of stable life. I know it’s rough out there, but I’ve seen people do some amazing things with their circumstances, whatever they may be. That’s good that Syndie’s happy too. I haven’t heard from her either.

Send me pictures of Shazi all promed-out! And put Jensen’s animation project on youtube and send me a link! I miss you guys so much. I saw the super-dymanic pictures on Dad’s blog. Very cool looking family I’ve got there. I like your assessment of “Mike”’s grades in Jensen’s art class. It’s so true.

I’ve taken to making the comic stripes you’ve sent me into book marks. The one about Jane Eyre needing to be re-written with vampires is in Sunkitty and His Friends and I’m now using a “Bizarro” double-feature (The Politically Correct Meeting of The Posture-Challenged Person of Notre Dame and the Different-Looking Individual and Laundry-day for Santa Muerte) for my 1,001 pitfalls of the Spanish Language text book. The other missionaries enjoy them as much as I do.

“Yeah. My mom gets me.” I tell them.

Good old Kimber. Such a charming, charming place it is. I share stories of Kimber occasionally to the other missionaries.

We received permission to watch The Prince of Egypt, so we’re going to have a little part today for P-day and put the movie on, and I’m going to make empanadas. The sweet kind. I came make the savory ones, but I’ve decided I like desert empanadas. They’re not so good the way taco bell does them, but I’ve got a recipe from a member who I trust.

I’m sorry my letter is so very short this week… But, I’m going to try my best to get that package off for you guys, so hopefully, receiving the first season of Castle on DVD, and other goodies will make up for the brevity of this little cartita.

I LOVE you all, sooo much and I miss you terribly, but I’m happy doing the Lord’s work and don’t really want to see you until July 28th. But, when that day comes, there will be much rejoicing.

Hermana Lillywhite

Hola, Happy Easter!

Your week sounds wondrous, and so does your food. Geez… I am gonna need to bajar some peso here pretty rapidito. You guys are going to think my Spanglish is so weird. And someone pointed out to me recently that I’m starting to sound like the locals when I talk in English. No all the time, but man… My language skills have really descended.

I hope Jensen gets into the animation program! She’s got such talent and skill. I’ll hire her. Missy’s new business enterprise sounds exciting! I’m sure she’ll do awesome. I’m sad I never got to meet either of our little rats… But it sounds like they were well loved in our home.

True or false, California is really going to legalize it? Holy bad-idea Batman. Who is in charge right now? And who do I have to bribe, beat and betray to put myself in a position of power so I can fire all these idiots?

Ashley’s mad. She’s also decided to reenlist in the Army. I’m pretty sure she’ll be in charge of the Army pretty fast here. Then she’ll institute nationwide Marshall Law and start shooting.

We got the chance to go to Zone Leaders council this last week. I have not been made a Zone Leader, last I checked, but I still got to go, which was very, very good for me, because the meeting was incredibly good. It was a nice little preparation on studying repentance and the Atonement that got me prepared for Conference.

Can I just gush about conference for a little while? I LOVE prophets, I decided. I am so glad we are not living in a time of apostasy, because, that would really be awful. I’ve now got a renewed appreciation for living in the dispensation of the fullness of times. The whole weekend was very inspiring and very fun. We started it off by going to Ashley’s to colour Easter eggs. I was so excited as conference started I took some great notes. Or, at least I hope they’re great, I was writing so fast that I think there are some parts that don’t make sense. But wow, that was exactly what I needed to hear, exactly what my investigator’s needed to hear, the members… everyone. It was so amazing. I can’t decide what my favorite talk on Saturday was. Elder Bednar is just so straight-up with everything he says, and Christofferson’s talk about William Tindell was fascinating. Really—they were all incredible. I don’t know that I have a favorite. It was so interesting on Sunday when Elder Andersen made a point to say that there are no assignments/collaborations for talks. They all just speak on whatever they feel the Lord wants them to speak on, and they prepare talks with no real knowledge about what everyone else is going to speak about. It was an answer to an unasked question I had concerning the program. There was a strong emphasis on The Atonement and the Savoir, which isn’t unusual at all, but they were also hitting the issue of the family and preparing for the future/teaching children A LOT, whereas I remember last conference I felt like there was a lot of missionary work in the talks, and last April there were a number of Temple talks.

But, as with the Lord, it all operates on inspiration. Even if they were assigned topics, they would be inspired topics and we could be confident that it was exactly what we needed to heard about.

When Elder Holland started to speak on Pornography, I’ll admit I was a little disappointed for about a half second, just because I always look forward to his talks and enjoy listening/re-listening to them and wasn’t sure there would be much of a need for me to have a talk on pornography permanently on my Ipod, the way his other talks will be. (When I have an Ipod, obviously) But man. That was awesome. He’s just so cool. The man has a gift from God to just lay it on the table and stand for truth and beauty and all that’s good, and it could be my favorite talk.

Possibly. There were too many to make a sure judgment.

President Monson was in rare form Saturday, making us all laugh. Then he talked about Death.

SOOOO touching. Nobody noticed me getting a little emotional here and there, I hid it well. This one was a hard hitter…

I actually heard Elder Rasband’s WONDERFUL talk at the same time dad did. And wasn’t Elder Uchtdorf’s talk on patience wonderful as well, daddy?

.

Wow, except that would be apostasy, so I’m going to backspace over that madness and just leave this line up here so you can wonder what I said…

I do NOT have the priesthood. But…

My companion and I decided to attend the Priesthood session of conference as well. We didn’t want to alarm the brethren with our feminine presence, so we slipped unnoticed into the mother’s lounge at the chapel and enjoyed two extra hours of conference a little early! We hadn’t gotten the chance to do personal study/eat dinner, so we did that by listening to conference and eating Wendy’s in the mother’s lounge.

The elders found it pretty amusing. They didn’t know we were there, but we told them the next day.

Don’t worry though, I’ll attend the semi-annual Mormon woman shopping extravaganza from here on out. Although I LOVED going to the priesthood session, I am not, as such, invited. It’s true.

I think they should probably have everybody watch that talk right after they open their mission call. That’s probably what I’ll do with all future missionaries within my influence for the rest of my life. It was such a powerful, perfect explanation of just HOW important our specific, inspired calls are. Also, there’s a CD I procured a copy of out here called “Conversion of a Catholic Priest” which shares some pretty powerful stuff on the same subject. So cool. I’d send it to you, but I might end up with one last companion who hasn’t heard it and didn’t hide in the Mother’s Lounge to eaves-drop on the Priesthood session. Everyone needs to know how important their calls are, and that their decision to serve or not to serve doesn’t just affect their own lives.

Also, I love Elder Uchtdorf. He’s so very German and charming.

I’m going to try to send that package off today. If I can’t manage it, then I’m sorry—hopefully next week. I was going to send home my journal that I just finished this weekend, since I deemed it acceptable for others to read besides myself, unlike all the other journals I’ve ever kept, but I took all my conference notes in the last couple of pages, so I will probably have to do some ‘gleaning of therefores’ for my personal study over the next few weeks before I send you that. I love you all so very much, I pray for you and miss you terribly, and yes, I too, cannot wait to talk to ya’ll on mother’s day, which is, as you said, just around the corner.

Don’t fret, I’m not trunky, nor am I ‘anti-trunky’. I’m happy. I’m happy with my mission so far, I’m happy today and tomorrow looks pretty keen and in a few months when I see you all again, I will be so happy! My life is amazing, I’ve got nothing to complain about really, and I don’t see the point in being too terribly anxious for the future, or for dreading it. I’m at one with my situation. It’s a good situation. But… I do miss you and think of you often, and I’ll be so excited when I can give you all great big hugs again!

BesitosYAbrasotes, Hermana Lillywhite